locked chest

if you put a bag in a wooden chest and than lock it (both with key or magery) you can't move the bag anymore, BUT you should be able to move what's inside the bag, I'm 100% sure of this since I used to do that all the time, I can't find anything supporting that, I only have my memory thx and bye

Unfortunately, we can't add something without some evidence of it actually functioning that way. In this case, you may be remembering a different bug with magic lock that allowed players to "use" the items contained within the box (e.g. bandages and reagents). This is a confirmed bug from the era that we do have replicated here, but the ability to move items around in a locked chest isn't one, and we'll need some concrete information before we include it.

_________________

UOSA Historian and former staff member: August 11, 2008 - June 19, 2016

it's not that IT WAS like I sayd, it's alwais been like I sayd, if you login on an OSI server right now and try it, it works, it has alwais been like that from the beginning, that's why I doubt you'll ever be able to find patch notes on the matter, it's a game mechanic that never changed

The fact that you can do this on OSI right now is good information to support your claim. It is not enough but it is a step in the right direction.

Try to search for evidence in old postings people made, you can find it though the google groups search engine.

Another good indicator is to test this on the Demo - Kaivan is usually willing to do a quick test. If the Demo supports this, and current official servers support this, and there are no patch notes to indicate that this was removed during the T2A era, then it becomes very solid evidence.

TL;DR: Players should be able to move items in and out of magically locked containers, and use the resources contained within as if they were sitting normally in their bag. The only issue is the specifics of exactly how that was done.

-----------

Malvo wrote:

it's not that IT WAS like I sayd, it's alwais been like I sayd, if you login on an OSI server right now and try it, it works, it has alwais been like that from the beginning, that's why I doubt you'll ever be able to find patch notes on the matter, it's a game mechanic that never changed

Thank you for the clarification on what you were saying. Your initial post suggested that it was an old feature, but was a mechanic that was "fixed" at some point. From this post, and subsequent post, I believe that we're talking about roughly the same thing.

These are a couple of posts that reference the same "bug" that I'm talking about regarding magic lock and the ability to use items out of such a locked container. More on that in just a bit...

Rose wrote:

Yep, those are quite good finds. The date is slightly past our target date (nov 99) but it certainly narrows things down. I would say if the Demo supports this then it is a change that should be made.

Kaivan thoughts?

Ok, so I've gotten some time to sit down and do some research on the subject, and I think I've got a fairly good picture of how things are supposed to work. This is by no means a certainty, but we have a pretty good idea given the information.

First, I would like to point out that I've tested the behavior of magic lock chests both on the demo, and on live OSI servers, and the behavior seems to be nearly identical between the two. However, the behavior does seem to be somewhat different than the behavior suggested via some rather detailed newsgroup postings on the subject. So with that in mind, let me give some details on what I was able to find out regarding the behavior of locked chests, both on live servers, the demo, and what players did during T2A.

First, on the demo and on live servers, locked boxes do nearly identical things under the same conditions. The conditions and what you can do are as follows:

Chest is magically locked, and the chest has been left open

Reagents and other consumable items can be used and taken directly out of the chest.

No new items can be added to the chest.

On the demo, new items can be added to existing stacks of items in the chest (e.g. adding more of a reagent to an existing stack). This is not possible on live servers and will return the "It appears to be locked." system message when attempted.

Chest is magically locked, and items are within a secondary bag, with that bag left open

Reagents and other consumables can be used, taken directly out of, and put directly into the secondary bag.

The above mechanics regarding items in the top layer of a magically locked chest still apply here.

Chest is locked by key, and the chest has been left open

New items cannot be added to the chest. A system message of "It appears to be locked." is given when any attempt to add something new to the chest is done, regardless of the method.

Items cannot be removed from the chest. A system message of "You cannot pick that up." is given when any attempt to remove an items is done.

On the demo, items can be added to existing stacks of items by directly dropping the item onto the existing stack. This is not possible on live servers and will return the "It appears to be locked." system message when attempted.

Consumable items such as reagents or arrows cannot be used from the chest, and will report as such.

Chest is locked by key, and items are within a secondary bag, with that bag left open

Items can be added and removed from the secondary bag.

Items can be added to existing stacks of items by either dropping items on the secondary bag, or by dropping items directly on the stack of items.

Consumable items such as reagents or arrows cannot be used from the chest or secondary bag, and will report as such.

The above mechanics regarding items in the top layer of a key locked chest still apply here.

From the above scenarios we can see that both the demo and live servers seem to have very close mechanics regarding magically locked boxes. Both allow you to use resources from within the chest, whether they are in the top layer of the magically locked chest or in a secondary bag, and players are free to move items in and out of secondary bags, whether the bag is within a magically locked or key locked container.

However, this doesn't necessarily mean that things always worked this way on OSI servers. Specifically, if there is no conflicting evidence regarding the way that magic lock worked, we generally accept that position until some significant body of contrary evidence shows up. In this case, there are some rather detailed posts on the newsgroups regarding this subject. For anyone who is interested in reading more about it, a search under the alt.games.computer.ultima.online group with the search term "bag locked chest" (without quotes) will provide most of these sources.

First, two quotes from a thread dated 9/2/98 regarding thief-proofing techniques where the basics of the demo style mechanics are explained:

Quote:

> Can anyone name any other thief-proofing tatics?

* Obtain two large chests.

* Trap one of them with a Greater Explosion or Deadly Poison.

* Open up the untrapped chest and drag it to the side.

* Cast the spell Magic Lock on the opened chest.

The chest is now locked, but you still have it open. You can accessbolts/arrows/reagents from the chest (unlike a conventionally lockedchest). Thieves cannot get into the chest, nor can they steal it if weighsmore than 10 stones.

Thieves will have 50% chance of getting killed from your trapped chest,which is a good thing.

If the chest closes on you, you have to cast Magic Unlock and repeat theprocess over again.

--

and...

Quote:

> If the chest closes on you, you have to cast Magic Unlock and repeat the>process over again.

Even if the chest is closed you can still use the regeants inside forspells. Your house and tent keys will also work by default. If you havethe chest open on the screen you can add stuff if it is stackable, withouthaving to magic unlock it.(you have to have at least 1 of the stackable itemalready in the chest)

Driakos.

Bolding on the quotes is mine. These two quotes show us that items within a magically locked container are usable, and that it is possible to add to stacks already present inside of a magically locked container. It also clarifies that it is not possible to use items within a chest that is locked via conventional methods. These points line up exactly with the demo information regarding magically locked chests. It even verifies that the reagents and other items such as house keys are accessible and can be used, even if the chest itself has been closed. What this post leaves unclear is the usability of sub-containers.

This post dated only a couple of months later (11/11/98) provides us with a much clearer set of information regarding the use of magically locked chests, and how they work:

Quote:

Here's how:

Take a large chest - not a box or crate, but the big brown chests.Large chests are crafted using 15 wood and the carpentry skill.

Put the chest in your pack at the top level with your spellbook andother newbie items like a dagger. Put everything else inside it. Youmay lay things out at the top level of the chest, or put them insub-containers. I typically lay out bandages, potions, ribs, recallrunes, and weapons in the chest (except a halberd - too heavy to steal- which goes in my main pack) ; then I put reagents in one pack andhave another empty pack for gold and loot. Keep the large chest openon your screen.

LOCK the chest using the Magic Lock spell. You may now access and useANYTHING in the chest, but it CANNOT be opened by thieves snoopingyour pack. You are able to remove items from the chest orsub-containers, but you cannot put anything into the chest - you CANput things into the sub-containers freely.

If you need to put something into the chest, unlock it with the Unlockspell. Your pack will be closed whenever you first log in, so youwill have to unlock the chest, open it, position it on-screen, andthen lock it each time you log in or accidently close the chest.

People who want to steal your belongings will call this an exploit.Screw them.

Gresh, Catskillls

Again, bolding is mine. From this post, and the post above we can confirm that as late as November 98, the mechanics found in the demo are exactly the same as the mechanics being used on live OSI servers, which gives us a good grounding for the mechanics. However, despite this, some information exists to suggest that the tactics might have changed due to an unlisted patch as part of the January 19, 1999 patch notes. The following post from 1/9/99 suggests that a fix is incoming for the magic lock "bug":

At least don't implement this fix until you fix thieving and tankthief PKers.

I don't want to have to resort to 30 scattered packs in my backpackto avoid be picked clean by some asshole.

This suggest that the magic lock "bug" was going to be removed, and several posts on the day of or after the day of the patch seem to point to the behavior being removed as it was found on the demo, although there is some possible conflict over how it was implemented. As an example, this post from 1/20/99 suggests that the patch was never implemented or that it didn't really do anything:

Quote:

Good News...

Keeping Regs in the top level of the magic locked chest still works.You can cast and pull stuff out....but you can't put stuff back in.

IMHO I think this is how it should be. It's not a bug...hell, it'smagic! If nothing else, this is one of the benefits of using the magiclock (note: there are no others). And, since you can't put thingsback into the chest, what you use becomes vulnerable to thieves. I'velost many bows this way.

It's nice to have some good news about this otherwise useless patch.And, I keep asking myself, "why is OSI fixing all these things that Idon't care about, and why are they NOT fixing the things that needfixing."

Mark

(Marcus of Catskills)

Taken at face value, the above description is essentially what OSI had before this point, and suggests that the patch never went live, or that Catskills received the patch after other servers (this was traditionally the case, with phased rollouts of patches). The following post post, also from 1/20/99 suggests that the patch was actually implemented, and that it had some actual effect on the usage of items from inside of a magically locked chest:

Quote:

I have several lockable chests in my house. Before the patch I kept all thekeys to my lockable item on a key ring in my secure chest which I keptunlocked. Then if I needed to go into another crate or box I would just usethe key ring to unlock it. Now with the new patch when I try to do this itjust toggles the locked down or not locked down but the crate remains lockedit this what OSI had in mind that you need to keep all your keys to yourlocked items laying around loose. Well this is a fine mess I liked it betterbefore where I just kept and old key in my bag for locking down items.

Also the locked box patch really messed things up for a lot of people. Somuch for thief proofing your stuff now. I can understand the reagents notbeing able to be used which I could not do this anyway because I usedtrapped tinkered box not a magically locked box. But before I could dragthings in and out of a bag in the box. Now you can still drag thing out butyou can't put things back in. Does anybody know if this is also the case ina magically locked box. Because now I have to carry around a key for thebox so I can unlock it to put stuff back in and then relock it.

Has anybody else had these problems and do you have a solution to themThanksQuentin

Bolding mine. This post provides some possible context for the previous post and possibly explains the intent of the patch itself. Specifically: players could "use" items stored within magically locked containers, and they could also remove items from inside magically locked containers, but they could not place items back into such a container by utilizing a secondary bag to do so. However, despite this, a second post from the next day in the same thread points out an interesting method which apparently circumvents the patch itself:

Quote:

Quentin wrote:

> Also the locked box patch really messed things up for a lot of people. So> much for thief proofing your stuff now. I can understand the reagents not> being able to be used which I could not do this anyway because I used> trapped tinkered box not a magically locked box. But before I could drag> things in and out of a bag in the box. Now you can still drag thing out but> you can't put things back in. Does anybody know if this is also the case in> a magically locked box. Because now I have to carry around a key for the> box so I can unlock it to put stuff back in and then relock it.>> Has anybody else had these problems and do you have a solution to them

Your friendly neighborhood Quaestor, who only started using locked chests theday before (had to ask how to do it), figured this one out without a moment'sconcern. Go figger.

Two points.

1 Working out of a magically locked chest still works just fine, justrequiring a slight change.

a Put your stuff in a box or bag. b Put that in the large chest. c Put the chest in another box or bag in your pack. d Open the chest, magically lock it, use everything in the inner container without problems, including regs and arrows. Putting things in and taking them out work just fine.

2 For those who cannot use Magic Lock and Unlock:

a Put stuff in bag or box. b Put that in a large lockable chest. c Open both and lock the lockable one. d Put the key in a bag or box that weighs a lot. e Place the locked chest (I use a crate) OVER the other one in your base pack, so it covers it up.

Unable to steal or move the locked box, the thief cannot get at the bag to getthe key. A random steal does not work against heavy objects. Make sure butcontainers weigh enough and nothing can be stollen without cheating.

NOTE: Cheat programs that can cause items to disappear to the cheater will getpast this, so you still have to keep moving. Against them, all this does is buyyou a little time. It is recommended you use a number of layers and falsekeys. Uh, don't forget which is the real one.

Bolding mine. These instructions point to another method where players are able to store the magically locked bag inside of another bag of some sort, creating a 3 layer nest with the magically locked box in the middle, and the previous secondary bag as a tertiary bag. Utilizing this method, players seem able to do what they did before, and this suggests that the fix was either hastily done, or was limited in it's ability to check due to CPU constraints.

Adding to this, another thread dated on the day of the patch itself notes that the patch was implemented, and the thread has an interesting response within. The first post states the following:

Quote:

Just discovered that this patch has removed the ability to cast usingregs in a Magic Locked chest after all, contrary to what was said onthe UOVault by one of the OSI developers. People are already callingthis the "Thief Helper" patch.

Sigh...time to go back to dividing my regs into small piles.

According to this post, the patch was implemented although the specifics of what it did were significantly different than the previously linked thread. Additionally, in the same thread on 1/22/99, we have a second response citing the exact same 3 layer method found in the other thread:

Quote:

Fortunately, we don't have to wait months for the "fix" to be fixed.

Put your regs in a box or bag.

Put that in a large chest.

The the chest in another box or bag in your pack.

Open the chest, magic lock it, use the stuff in the inner container withoutproblems.

It took me just a minute to devise this on patch day, and it works perfectly.

The best part is, since you have your chests in bags, you can put deathrobesover them, and the jerks will believe you are not even using chests, and willtry to steal. Leave something in there for them, and kill them at yourleisure.

This gives us two separate threads where we have confirmation that some patch was indeed implemented, and two separate patches where an alternative solution is explained. This gives us some reasonable grounding that a patch was implemented. However, more interesting than these posts is a response further down in the thread from Raph Koster (Designer Dragon) himself:

Quote:

>Just discovered that this patch has removed the ability to cast using>regs in a Magic Locked chest after all, contrary to what was said on>the UOVault by one of the OSI developers. People are already calling>this the "Thief Helper" patch.

It slipped through and is being removed.

-Raph KosterLead Designer, Ultima Online

This provides near definitive proof that the patch was indeed implemented, although the specifics of exactly what it did are still somewhat cloudy, but more importantly, it suggests that the patch was never intended to go live. This is interesting when we take into consideration information found later on. Specifically, spanning from March of 99 until November 99, several posts givethesamesolution (with 3 bags) as the one described in the two threads above. This suggests that the practice became common, and that players utilized 3 bags instead of 2 due to an unlisted patch. Interestingly enough, the posts previously linked by Malvo seem to suggest that the 3 bag method was no longer needed in UOR, which may mean that the patch was silently removed, just as it was silently added.

Either way, this leaves us with two distinct paths to go down. First, we can assume that the patch was indeed pulled, and that the mechanics as they operated on the demo are reflective of what was possible during T2A, or we can assume that a patch was implemented, preventing players from using reagents stored directly in a magically locked box or in a secondary bag, provided that the box is only in the player's main pack. But, if the magically locked box was inside another bag, then it would work the same as it did on the demo. Either way, it seems clear that players should be able to add and remove items from bags stored within a magically locked box, it's just a matter of the specifics for how it was done.

_________________

UOSA Historian and former staff member: August 11, 2008 - June 19, 2016

I never cared much for what you can or can't do with items on a locked chest, it's pointless, I just put in a bag, magic lock the chest, and use the bag as my main backpack, that prevent all kind of snooping/stealing unless thief may acquire a target (like you holding your weapon and than disarming it).But I appreciate your accuracy.I hope you can apply this asap

Recently, I shared the following information with another player. While I have not tried to replicate all of the techniques that Kaivan had listed during his investigation, what follows is a true example of (at least some of) the mechanics that are currently live on UOSA.

Quote:

Place a pouch or a bag inside a chest, keep the chest-gump open and dragged off to the side of your screen, and then cast the spell "Magic Lock" on the chest: now, drop whatever you want into the pouch, and it can not be stolen (as long as the chest itself weighs more than 10 stones; otherwise, the chest can be stolen!); reagents inside the pouch will remain available to be consumed by your own spell-casting!

Thing to remember:•do NOT ever let the chest-gump close: you won't be able to access the bag/pouch inside!•do NOT ever move the chest in your pack, because that will close the gump!•there MUST be a bag/pouch inside the chest, into which you drop things: you can not drop anything directly into the chest.•while reagents remain available to be consumed by spell-casting, "into-the-chest" is a one-way trip: you can not retrieve anything that has been put into the chest, whether or not it is in the pouch.•make sure the chest always weighs more than 10 stones!

Cast Magic Unlock when you need to retrieve anything (and it is safe to do so).

The change is the ability to move item in and out of a bag inside a locked chest is what needs added.

As well as being able to do such when a bag is inside a magic locked chest.

Currently, the only way is to add items directly onto existing stacks (aka restock agent can do it for regs) and they can be consumed. (at least in a magic locked situation, not sure on a key locked situation)

Not being able to throw items picked up from MoBs and remove them later without unlocking chest is what is lacking.

Kaivan summed it up really nicely. The patch is all that needs to be done. I think the question of IF it needs to be changed was already mostly decided by that post above.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Baidu [Bot] and 13 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum